April 19, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an ironic twist, the nation’s top “gay bullying” opponent called Christian students “pansies” for walking out of his anti-bullying speech when he insulted the Bible, according to one report.

Karla Dial of CitizenLink reported Wednesday that controversial syndicated columnist Dan Savage of the “It Gets Better Project,” a popular Internet-based campaign encouraging respect for homosexuality among youths, made the remarks during a journalism conference for students in Seattle.

One source, a 17-year-old student from California, told CitizenLink that Savage called her and other Christian students “pansies” after they walked out of his anti-bullying speech when he referred to the Bible’s injunctions against homosexuality as “B.S.”

“He said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the ‘B.S.’ in the Bible,” she said.

“I was thinking, ‘This is not going a good direction at all,’ Then he started going off about the Bible. He said somehow the Bible was pro-slavery. I’m really shy. I’m not really someone to, like, stir up anything. But all of a sudden I just blurted out, ‘That’s bull!’”

The student’s father, a public school teacher, told CitizenLink that Savage’s own behavior was bullying to the students who were not yet college-age.

“If Dan Savage was a teacher, they’d suspend him without pay for this behavior,” he said. “He didn’t take account of who his audience was. If he was doing this with a bunch of college journalism kids, that would be a different story — that’s more rough and tumble. How many of the kids who didn’t walk out felt backed into a corner? To me, that’s bullying behavior. It has all the symptoms, as far as I’m concerned.”

Savage did not respond to LifeSiteNews.com’s request to verify the account.

The gay rights activist has won notoriety for regularly attacking Christianity, the Bible, and Christian parenting. Last June, Savage shot back at Concerned Women for America’s Peggy Nance after she complained of her son’s exposure to a celebrity-studded “It Gets Better” ad encouraging youth to embrace homosexuality while watching FOX’s American Idol.

“Nance’s son was always our target demo,” said Savage, the founder of the campaign, adding: “Now I don’t know if Nance’s son is gay, bi, or trans, but if he is, he needs to know more than most that it can get better for him too, that there’s hope for his future, and that the adult world isn’t entirely populated by hateful s***s like his mother.”

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family notes that the behavior of Savage, whose high-profile anti-bullying project was joined even by President Obama, who contributed a video, revealed the marginalizing of Christianity that often results from such “tolerance” campaigns.

“This illustrates perfectly what we’ve been saying all along: Too many times in the name of “tolerance,” Christian students find their faith being openly mocked and belittled in educational environments.